Thursday, July 12, 2012

Kicking in doors and killing everything in the room that lives or breathes; a classic pairing. On their own, either one would sort of fall flat. When paired together they make something really special.

Some pairings just work together, like whiskey and coke, Turner and Hooch, or human skulls and pneumatic robot pincers. Finding these pairings can take time, precious time. Time that your human race has less and less of every day as the robot apocalypse nears.

Fortunately, Theo from Allout Productions has done the legwork to find one pairing that always goes down smooth: Black Sabbath and Luke Strobel's riding.

So turn off that crappy electronica BS, turn up some classic stoner metal and watch Luke rip some of the funnest trails in the world (Bromont) in one of the least funnest parts of the world (French Canuckistan/Quebexico):

For those of you who haven't checked out my Diamondback teammates website, you really should sometime. Kyle does regular race reports, and has a couple good stories up there about our recent races at Angel Fire, Skibowl, and Silver. There are stories about victory, defeat, and the adversity that racers have to overcome at every race. Stories range from the humorous (racing to down our bottles of victory champagne on the podium), to the painful (Kyle tearing something I can neither spell or pronounce in his shoulder during his quali run at Skibowl), to the downright bizarre (hitting a deer and an elk on our drive to angelfire).

Kyle is well-written, his blog is full of pictures that move his stories along, and he is always respectful. He really is the consummate professional athlete, and his writing demonstrates this. He's written a lot of kind things about me on his blog, even before we were teammates. He is everything a sponsor could hope for in a rider, and he has been an excellent representative for the brands for whom he rides, brands like Diamondback, Gravity, Chris King, Shimano, Fox Racing Shox, Kenda, and more brands that I could shamelessly plug that I'm also sponsored by. It goes a long way to show what it takes to be successful in this sport. If professionalism, excellence, and sportsmanship are things you value, you definitely want to check out Kyle's blog.

If you're anything like me, and things like that make you feel uncomfortable, inadequate, or otherwise bore the shit out of you, I recommend sticking with Team Robot.

"I smile now, but I die a little on the inside every day." -Kyle Thomas

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

This picture of Mitch Ropelato from the recent US GP at Highland is why you are slow and Mitch is fast:

He's a better bike rider than you.

This video also helps explain why he's faster than you, but listening to this 15 minute video takes a lot longer than reading my seven word explanation, as featured above. Reading this guys book takes waaaaaay longer.

Monday, July 9, 2012

I've had a downhill trail out in the woods by Lewis and Clark College for a while now, in the same woods as the dirt jump trails. It's been my go to training trail, and it's only a 10 minute drive from my house. It's 400 vertical feet and nothing mind blowing, but it's pretty rad to be able to ride whenever I want, without having to drive an hour and a half out to the real trails.

I kept it secret for a long time, because we built it on private land, and that's sort of illegal. It' called "criminal trespassing" and "vandalism" I think. Anyway, the City of Portland bought the land recently, and made the trail legal. They sort of plowed our dirt jumps in the process, but that's another story. So now I don't have to keep the downhill trail secret anymore.

Lo and behold, I found out that someone put a Strava race segment in the woods. In current pole position is one Grant Ellman, a high school junior who is going to have his world rocked when I find someone who has an I-phone that I can borrow and I blow his time out of the water. Beating high schoolers that don't even race is sort of what keeps me going, and what helps me get up every morning.

It's important to note that my trail is to the left of this trail, thus the trail pictured is called the "right trail." As you can see, the right trail pretty much goes straight down the fall line.We tried to get a little more creative when we built ours.

While beating riders that are younger and less experienced than me is a hope, m real dream is that I can die while trying to win the Strava race and my family can sue Strava and make millions off a free app that has little to no revenue. I also bought a Garmin so I can sue them, too, and Garmin actually has money.

Rhetorical Question #1: This one almost doesn't bear asking, because it's so obvious, but is our country really so crappy and are people so lame that they sue a race promoter for encouraging competition? Really?

Rhetorical Question #2: If
your family can sue Strava for your death as you compete to win a
Strava race segment, than doesn't it also logically follow that you can
sue all the people that beat you? Aren't they driving you to compete just
as much as Strava?

Rhetorical Question #3: Charlie, are you really so competitive, immature, and petty that you're looking forward to crushing some random 17 year old's time on your personal trail that you built?

If you type "moral of the story" into google image search, this comes up. No, I don't know why either. Don't ask questions, just drink it in and be thankful that google blessed us with this modern-day Mona Lisa.

Moral of the story #1: You never want to win a Strava segment, or else you are legally exposed. Every bit as exposed as Strava, anyway. So throw the game. Take a dive. Let the other guy win. If you win, you could be sued.

Moral of the story #2: Absolutely, I am every bit that petty. I will crush that poor boys time.

Moral of the story #3: If winning a Strava segment makes you legally exposed to lawsuits, and losing Strava segments makes you legally safe, then Bob Stenson has no reason to fear being sued.

Moral of the story #4: If crashing and killing yourself while racing your bike gives your family a cause of action to sue race promoters, then Bob Stenson's family is sitting on a gold mine waiting to happen.